Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Fate of the Machu Picchu Collection

Within the field of archaeology, scholars often debate over
who owns cultural property and if archaeological material should return to
their source country (repatriate).In
this article/post, I plan to further analyze the case of the Yale/Peru
agreement that I discussed in my thesis as a comparison to the MFA and the “November
Collection”.I am writing this because I
wish to discuss in the future the factors of a successful repatriation that I
laid out in the conclusion of my thesis and analyze whether the Yale/Peru
agreement challenges the criticisms of repatriation.

The Machu Picchu collection consists of artifacts excavated
by Hiram Bingham, who discovered the site in 1911 and conducted expeditions
over the next couple of years.Bingham,
with an agreement with the Peruvian government at the time, shipped the
artifacts to Yale University for study, and over 90 years, Yale acted as
stewards for the collection and displayed some of the pieces in the Yale
Peabody Museum.

Below is an excerpt from my thesis briefly discussing the
agreement and you can find all citations in my thesis:

In late 2010, Yale
agreed to return the Machu Picchu collection to Peru (Yale University 2010).
Yale and the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco (UNSAAC) signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which not only discusses the return of the
collection, but also the creation of the UNSAAC-Yale University International
Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture (Yale University 2011e).
The center allows for collaboration between the two parties, allowing for the
exchange of information, the creation of a museum exhibit devoted to Machu
Picchu and the expeditions in 1911 and 1912, the creation of a storage
facility, and a research facility also available to visiting scholars (Yale
University 2011e). The exhibition opened just in time to celebrate the
centennial celebration of Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu on July 24, 2011
(Yale University 2011f, Heaney 2011). In recognition of Yale’s historic role in
the expedition, Peru will allow a small number of artifacts to remain on loan
in New Haven (Yale University 2011e).

In November 2012,
Yale returned the third and final container of the Machu Picchu
collection.The UNSAAC’s Museo Casa Concha
now houses the collection.

The Museo
Casa Concha is a colonial mansion in the heart of Cusco.The museum has 70 rooms, two levels and four
courtyards (qosqo.info).The museum
welcomes visitors with a short video about Hiram Bingham and his discovery of
the site of Machu Picchu, and acts as a first stop before taking the trip to
the site of Machu Picchu itself (you can see the video below).

Figure 2. Male Gold Figurine (Burger and Salazar 2004).

Figure 3. Gold Beaker in the Form of a Man's Head (Burger and Salazar 2004).

After
visiting the Yale Peabody Museum in December 2012 and researching the Museo
Casa Concha, the museums exhibitions parallel each other.Yale now has a small space dedicated to the
collection and the original exhibition, highlighting some of the tools,
journals, and documents used by Bingham.

In order to
ensure the conservation of the artifacts, Yale advises UNSAAC on maintenance
techniques.The collection from Machu
Picchu consists of human remains of 177 people, ceramics, and metal objects
among others.According to El
Comercio.pe, as of November 2012, over 70,000 people visited the collection,
including Mick Jagger.

The Repatriation debate:

I discussed the different
categories of arguments against repatriation in my thesis below is an excerpt:

Karen J. Warren (1989) breaks down the arguments
against repatriation into six categories: rescue, legal claim, world cultural
heritage, critiques of import/export restrictions, cultural access and
knowledge, and international conventions. The first category argues that many
antiquities would have been destroyed if those who had the ability to preserve
the antiquity (collectors and museums) did not remove them from their country
of origin. Those who rescued the antiquity have rightful ethical claim to the
antiquity. The rescue argument does not take into account antiquities taken
from relatively stable countries, as well as the possibility that objects in
museums can be harmed by flooding or other agents of deterioration. Those who
argue the rescue argument believe that source nations do not have the resources
to protect cultural property. An example of the rescue argument is the belief
Lord Elgin saved the Parthenon Marbles from further destruction that they
suffered from centuries the of wars and occupation of Greece (Greenfield 1996).

The
second category is that the foreign governments legally removed the cultural
property and thus have legal claim. The British Museum uses this argument to
justify why it should not return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece (Greenfield
1996; Kersel 2004). The third category is that because antiquity has value for
all humanity, it belongs to a world culture, and as a result, no one country
can own what belongs to the world, which is the goal of universal museums (Cuno
2008; MacGregor 2009). The fourth category concerns import and export
restrictions, and that art acts as a cultural ambassador, and collecting
promotes many important values. Artists like Jacob Epstein promoted
Pre-Columbian art, which gave it more respect within a western audience.

The fifth category targets the act of
returning items, arguing that repatriation restricts cultural access and
cultural knowledge. The argument that repatriation will restrict cultural
access assumes that less people will see the object in its source country than
a large museum in the west. This argument does not take into account the large
tourism market where people frequently visit foreign countries. Those argue for
the return of the Parthenon marbles stress that millions visit the Parthenon
they expect to view the marbles in Athens not in London (Gibbon 2005b).

The sixth category also
comments on the UNESCO Convention and other restrictions, suggesting that
restrictions and repatriation will only encourage the illicit trade in
antiquity. Cuno (2008) argues that looting continues at an increasing rate,
which means that these laws do not have an effect. He suspects that looted
antiquities go on the black market to private collections in countries that do
not respect restrictions, as opposed to through art galleries and museums
(2008). Although I am unsure if I agree completely with Cuno, I think that
restrictions provide countries with legal opportunities to pursue dealers and
looters, as the case with Italy demonstrates.

If
we look at the repatriation debate outlined above, the fifth category of
arguments directly relates to the current state of the collection, and I pose
these questions to my readers:

Does the agreement limit public access to the collection?

Would more people view the collection at Yale vs. the Museo Casa
Concha?Better worded, do less people
visit the collection now that it is in Peru?

Figure 5. Aryballos (Burger and Salazar 2004).

Figure 6. Lime Spoon (Burger and Salazar 2004).

Figure 4. Silver Tupu (Burger and Salazar 2004).

More
thoughts and analysis to come, this is an ongoing project for me.